Let’s talk about professions

I know, I spoke of oils from wizardry before. And in the money article, I wrote about how if you want money be a gatherer. OK, wahoo, but that’s just nibbling the apple. Let’s sink our teeth into the subject – remember, readers, this is a priest blog so if you’re not a priest the following may not be a perfect match. Actually, rule one will be.

The major reason for doing a profession is because it’s fun for you. If it’s not fun, don’t do it. Seriously this is a GAME, remember?
With that out of the way, let’s get into the lesser stuff. The first thing being all that advice of “if you’re a clothie, take tailoring and echanting.” Setting aside rule one (fun), that’s somewhat short-sighed. The reality is that excluding the issue of money EVERY profession has something that might be able to benefit you. Some more than others, of course, but every one of them still.

What, blacksmithing? That’s one of the ‘not much’ items, but… Set aside weight stones (add damage to your mace or staff) and sharpening stones (same for your daggers) since dps is not our bag. Put aside the rods for enchanters. One enchanted weapon alone makes blacksmithing worth it all: Hand of Eternity. (drool, sigh). The Fel Iron Hammer is technically a paladin weapon, but Int and MP5 is always worth a look. That’s a second example. There are a (scant, I admit) few more that are beneficial to the priest – heal or shadow.

The other “not much” is leathercrafting. After all, who cares about the drums (me, me). Armor kits (more armor, please, on this clothie). Bags (what, you thought only tailors made bags?) and cloaks.

OK, let’s pause a minute, because what’s obvious above isn’t so obvious from what’s coming. You don’t need any of it. And indeed, there are a lot of drop that will be better than what you can make. At the same time, there are a few things that are both unique and extraordinary within each profession. Getting to where you can make each is a long road, with definite spots of frustration at how “oh, wow, I did all that just for THIS?” Remember – fun…

Jewelcrafting looks like it SHOULD give you very useful things. And to be honest, it does. A bit. Some mana regen, some increases to stats, a little armor… and when you’re high enough, cutting gems to fit into the armor that will accept it so that armor gets ‘tweaked’ a bit more the way you want it. Again, you’ll find your self making things you can’t use and can’t sell (sigh). Welcome to the world of crafting.

Even deeper in the Making things you can’t use and can’t sell, but with some very nice spots for priests, is engineering. Again I’m not going into the details other than to point out that unlike every other craft, once you choose a specialty you can’t switch later. That said, I’ve used engineering quite successfully. In addition to the goggles (enhanced headgear), the various bombs and gadgets have made me much more dangerous against both PVE and PVP foes. (A personal digression – the mechanical harvester is the best thing going for priests trying to level in the 30s. Yay, a Pet – let them chew on IT for a while. The new experience of being the DPS crew and trying to not pull aggro, but not needing to heal your ‘tank’, is worth it on a host of levels.) That said – lots and lots and lots of making things you can’t use gets annoying after a while.

Tailoring gets recommended to priests – no, to all clothies – for a simple but obvious reason. You can wear almost all of it. Whether it’s any good or not is opinion. It’s worth noting that there’s something in here everybody buys – just not in quantities to make you rich, and unfortunately not always at the costs of your materials – but that’s bags. Bags usually sell. But for the rest… you can make almost everything you wear as a clothie. hmmm. I need to digress a moment.

If you are a priest (and to some extent a mage) approaching level 70, there is a VERY good reason to consider switching to tailoring for a while. Note I said switch. At the top level there are three sets of specialized garb which are very, very good for you. Primal Mooncloth is something that you can wear into (and mostly through) Kara. For the Shadow side, the same goes for Frozen Shadoweave. The problem, of course, is that you have to be a specialized tailor to wear your set. For that tiny window of play, it might be worth spending a few hundred gold for that type of gear. Or maybe not. It is, however, the reason so many guilds highly recommend (if not insist) their priests be tailors. End of digression.

Enchanting is the other one that commonly gets recommended to the magic types. Not truly crafting, it’s supplemental in effect. There are three really good reasons for considering this, though. The first two have been discussed before -personal enchantments and mana and wizard oils. An additional benefit is the few Bind on Pickup items you gain that you cannot use can be disenchanted – whether you use the results for later enchanting materials or for something to sell at the auction house is up to you.

Finally, there is alchemy. Taking herbs (and other materials) and turning them into potions and other items. Since this is my favorite crafting profession I’m going to restrain myself and point you to another alchemy lover’s post for more depth. Just, again, realize that you’ll be making things nobody wants, and almost always you’ll get to sell it for less than it cost you to make. But… you will never lack for mana or healing potions… (grin)

Yes, there are gathering professions. I’m going to skip them having discussed them before, other than repeating that they are going to make, not lose, money.

That was the short list. There are a lot of places which will give you much more detail – in addition to the wowwiki link you’ll find to the right, I recommend Kaliope’s Crafters Tome as “the place to go” for crafting information. Just remember….

If you’re making stuff, you’re making it for you and your own interest and enjoyment. Not to get rich (though it can be done), but for rule one:

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3 Responses to “Let’s talk about professions”

Shortly after I started playing on Kul Tiras, I transferred my 300 Dragonscale Leatherworker (Hunter) and 300 Tailoring Rogue (*sighhh* I know, I know, but I had my reasons!; besides, I was young and ignorant). So I figured I was set when I rolled Osprey, my priest. Gave him Herbalism and Skinning–moneymakers, at the very least.

Then I saw Primal Mooncloth items. *drool* I doubt I will ever raid past Kara, and it’ll probably be about the time the expansion is released that I get that far. For me, the Primal Mooncloth set (plus the Whitemend items, if I can get them) is ideal.

Needless to say, I dropped Skinning and picked up Tailoring. Roughly 6 weeks later (i.e., this past Friday) I made my Primal Mooncloth Shoulders. My tailoring will hit 375 before I’ve got all the Primal Mooncloth I need for the Robe. (Oh–the rogue? Mining 375, Jewelcrafting 365, tyvm, and about 200g last week in very, very leisurely mining and crafting. I should make that much today alone.)

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.